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Chapter 23
Part 2
Angharad fought against the crowd, and as it thinned out, she bore witness to the chaos they were escaping. Guards were downed and bloodied all around the town square, with market stalls and buildings bearing the signs of a violent encounter. An encounter with Gustov’s killer, stood tens of metres away, squaring off against another small battalion of guardsmen.
“Haz, over here!”
Angharad searched for the source of the call. Her red-headed friend and ally, Rhian was tending to a wounded guard, collapsed in a downed fruit and veg stall.
“Where’s Ifan?” asked Rhian, as she applied a bandage to the guard’s bloodied leg.
“He’s catching up now, he was tending to a wounded civilian.”
A sound of crashing timber and stone sounded off in the distance, back along the main road through town. Flames burst up into the air as the building collapsed, their warmth felt even in the town square.
“The town hall… Hopefully Ifan wasn’t caught up in that. Where are the elves?” asked Angharad.
“They’re flanking the thing; the head of the guard has taken the lead over there,” she nodded over to the phalanx approaching the pale naked figure. “He was massacring the watchmen when we arrived; they were trying their hardest to stop him from reaching the town hall.”
“Aye, ma’am. After he launched that fireball at the building, we knew we had to stop him at any cost, lest he raze the town to the ground in your pursuit.” The guard spoke up, her voice weak and strained from the battle.
“You did a great job.” Angharad smiled at the guard, and with Rhian’s help, pulled her upright. “The townsfolk are making their way to the docks; they’ll need people to organise an escape and to keep everyone calm. Get moving.”
“Aye aye, ma’am.” The guard limped off towards the main road and began directing the remaining civilians towards the docks.
Angharad turned back to Rhian. “I hate to say it, but for now we should wait for Ifan. The guard’s captain seems to have a strategy that I’d rather not get in the way with while it’s working, and without the Divine Breath I’m unsure what use we’d be anyway.”
“Agreed. Let’s just keep our distance and wait for our cue.”
Fendrick followed Dai as they raced through the town’s back alleys, through murky puddles of unknown liquids and a miasma of less than pleasant smells. Kolt and Ryker were close behind, each covering their faces with darkened masks. After a few turns and after negotiating a couple dead ends, Dai stopped at the corner of a building a few tens of metres away from the odd pale attacker.
“We’re executing formation eff, where the guardsmen over there are playing the role of Welk. Everyone understand what’s required of them?” Dai looked over the group, as each one nodded back to him. “Good. Kolt, Ryker, you get in position on the other side of the street, and we’ll move up together on my lead.”
“Yessir.”
Kolt and Ryker dashed across the street, their feet in dark leather moccasins that made barely a sound as they approached their destination.
Dai confirmed that they were still unseen with a nod and began moving up the path towards the figure. Fendrick followed closely behind, brandishing his sword slowly.
The two pairs stopped a metre from the figure, still hidden in the shadows and with blades readied. Dai flashed his hand to Ryker and Kolt and counted down from three with his fingers. As he closed his hand into a fist, he and Ryker darted out from the sides of the street, each slashing out at each ankle of the figure with their swords, before sweeping the figure’s feet out from underneath him. Kolt and Fendrick dashed towards the centre of the street. Kolt leapt into the air, and with pair of hands clasped around the hilt of his downward pointed sword, Fendrick acted as a springboard and launched her upwards. She landed on the figure’s shoulders and wrapped her legs around his neck, planting her sword into his skull. Dai and Ryker pinned the figure’s legs down, allowing Fendrick an unguarded shot at his back. Silently, Fendrick swung his sword in his hand, and planted the blade between the figure’s ribs, puncturing their heart and damaging their lungs.
The figure tumbled to the ground, tossing Kolt to the floor. She recovered with a roll but failed to complete the manoeuvre as the figure’s hand snatched out and grabbed her ankle. With a grunt, her body sprawled out onto the cobblestone in front of the bloodied guardsmen.
“The stone!” Fendrick shouted out over the din of chaos in the town, watching as the figure plucked the pouch from Kolt’s belt despite his mortal wounds. “Trolls! Pin his arms! Do anything you can to stop him from retrieving that pouch!”
The guards were flummoxed by the elves’ assassination attempt, and Fendrick’s cries for help struggled to reach all but the guard captain. His foot shot out in an effort to crush the figure’s wrist with pinpoint accuracy. His boot met the figure’s flesh and his hand followed up, wrestling with the figure’s fingers for control of the pouch. “Guards! Paralyze him, lock him to the floor with your blades!”
The other guards came to their senses, and a flurry of blades launched out over Kolt, piercing the figure’s back all over, and driving his body into the ground. Blood splattered over the scene, and the group were embroiled in a crimson struggle for dominance over the stone.
The figure’s fingers gripped ever stronger to the stone’s pouch as the guard captain fought his fatigue and muscle aches and continued pulling at the figure’s grasp. Finally, the captain managed to pull a finger free from the grip, snapping it immediately with a thumb and tightening fist. Each finger gave way one after another and with a victorious grin, the guard captain flipped the figure’s hand. There was nothing there.